Quantum Computing

The combination of two of the twentieth century's most influential and revolutionaryscientific theories, information theory and quantum mechanics, gave rise to a radically new view ofcomputing and information. Quantum information processing explores the implications of using quantummechanics instead of classical mechanics to model information and its processing. Quantum computingis not about changing the physical substrate on which computation is done from classical to quantumbut about changing the notion of computation itself, at the most basic level. The fundamental unitof computation is no longer the bit but the quantum bit or qubit. This comprehensive introduction tothe field offers a thorough exposition of quantum computing and the underlying concepts of quantumphysics, explaining all the relevant mathematics and offering numerous examples. With its carefuldevelopment of concepts and thorough explanations, the book makes quantum computing accessible tostudents and professionals in mathematics, computer science, and engineering. A reader with no priorknowledge of quantum physics (but with sufficient knowledge of linear algebra) will be able to gaina fluent understanding by working through the book. The text covers the basic building blocks ofquantum information processing, quantum bits and quantum gates, showing their relationship to thekey quantum concepts of quantum measurement, quantum state transformation, and entanglement betweenquantum subsystems; it treats quantum algorithms, discussing notions of complexity and describing anumber of simple algorithms as well as the most significant algorithms to date; and it exploresentanglement and robust quantum computation, investigating such topics as quantifying entanglement,decoherence, quantum error correction, and fault tolerance.

Wolfgang Polak is a computer science consultant.